Melbourne-based Blockchain Global has made a AU$4.35 million investment in fellow blockchain firm Digital X, paying AU$300,000 of the total by way of a convertible loan in bitcoin.

Of the remaining AU$4.05 million, AU$550,000 will be via convertible notes and AU$3.8 million in shares.

The investment sees Blockchain Global hold a 40 percent stake — approximately 1.6 million shares — in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed company.

In a letter to Digital X shareholders on Wednesday, the companies explained that Blockchain Global will voluntarily escrow its shareholding for a period of 12 months from the date of issue. Additionally, Blockchain Global will have the right to appoint up two directors to the Digital X board.

ACX.io was touted at the time by Blockchain Global’s CEO Sam Lee as Australia’s largest bitcoin exchange by volume and order book, claiming 60 percent of the bitcoin market trade volume in the country.

As part of the deal, Blockchain Global took over the management of Digital X Direct’s clients, leaving Digital X to reap 50 percent of the revenue over a five-year term from new customers introduced to the ACX.io exchange as a result.

For the three months ended March 31, 2017, Digital X said it generated revenues of approximately AU$11,000 related to Blockchain Global’s referral fees, and AU$2,000 from foreign exchange fees.

The companies originally signed a cooperation agreement back in 2015 that saw the exchanging of industry-specific information.

Blockchain Global was founded in 2014, but was operating previously as Bitcoin Group. It rebranded after the company expanded operations beyond being simply a bitcoin mining operator, now comprising a management consulting division and a corporate incubator — which ACX.io was born out of.

After rebranding, Digital X announced its focus would be on its app-based cash remittance product AirPocket, saying at the time that the new name and direction represented a strategic change from a focus on bitcoin as a mechanism in order to store value to a focus on software development.

In April, Digital X entered into a partnership with fellow Perth-based software development firm Lateral Pty Ltd to create blockchain and distributed ledger-based products for large enterprises across Australia and several targeted regions in Asia.